Life is make believe, fantasy given form

Striking the Motherlode

A friend of mine shared a link with me, and when I opened it, I gasped. My knees turned to syrup, and I wiped tears of delight from my eyes. I’d struck writing gold.

Brandon Sanderson, the highly successful author of Mistborn and The Way of Kings fame, teaches a master’s level class at BYU for fantasy and science-fiction writers. The class is so popular that only a small number of interested students actually get to enroll. In response to the flood of despair, the entire series of winter lectures were videotaped and are available on YouTube at zero cost.

image from thebooksmuggler.com

You don’t write sci-fi or fantasy, you say.

I will assert, while skipping in circles with excitement, that the ideas he presents are 99% applicable to all fiction writing. He covers a broad range of choices and approaches, and rarely lays down any hard fast rules. Writers will fill up their brains with ideas while being told to discover what works for them.

(Just to warn you, he does hate passive sentences and has an odd aversion to the word “replied”).

Now, this is a ton of material that includes not only invaluable lessons on writing, but also on how to pitch, sell, and market a book. He’s tidily listed the lessons by content so it’s possible to pick and choose what you’re interested in learning about. The complete listing, with links to each lecture is here: Brandon Sanderson Writing Seminar.

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91 thoughts on “Striking the Motherlode”

Reblogged this on kyrosmagica and commented:
Reblog of Brando Sanderson’s writing Youtube Seminars from D.Wallace Peach of myths of the mirror. These will keep you out of mischief for a very long time!

Listened to the video on Self publishing versus Traditional publishing – some excellent advice, looking forward to listening to some more – loads of topics to choose from. He’s an entertaining chap (as you would expect!) 🙂

Reblogged this on mira prabhu and commented:
I picked up a fantasy novel but never read it until very recently, when i really needed an escape after a death in the family…then I simply could not put it down. A world so lovingly created…a harsh and elitist world operated by masters running a slave population…the author is Brandon Sanderson, the highly successful author of Mistborn (he novel I refer to) and The Way of Kings fame…check out his tips on writing by scrolling down for a link…and don’t forget to read this great post along the way too! Thank you Chris Graham!

Reblogged this on Wendy Anne Darling and commented:
I can barely believe the wealth of resources that D. Wallace Peach has found here! A veritable cornucopia of lectures from Brandon Sanderson, all free on YouTube! Although he’s a fantasy and sci-fi guy, these lectures are 99% applicable to all fiction writing. How often do you get a chance to experience so much knowledge for free?

I a still fascinated by the amount of support going on, one Author to another. I’m amazed that a best-selling Writer has been generous enough to make help available to we who cannot afford higher education, too.
Thanks for posting so others can benefit from this awesomeness!

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